This is nuts. I so shouldn't be the FTR. This is all the fault of Bradley and Toni, all with your blue highway Least Heat Moon sojourney stuff. You make my feet itch. You keep me from my work. Years from now, while I'm eating beans out of a can in my Chinook ... I'll thank you.
This is a memory review. I will refresh said memory before the year is out and therefore I feel comfortable giving you this here now.
A few years back a friend moved to Missoula. She left her belongings in storage and I, being a swell friend, promised to drive them up once she settled. And she did, so I did.
I had never driven to Missoula before. It was unmapped territory. My kind of candy store. The dualies of the U-Haul left the superslab before Redding and touched them not again until just outside Montana. The initial high point was the look on the ranger's face in the Hart Mountain Antelope Reserve on the way to Steen's Mountain. The look, then the question as to whether I was lost (I wasn't), then the observation that they didn't get too many U-Haul's up that way. I was looking for hot springs. His expression softened to one of understanding.
Steen's followed (Bradley I trust you know of the sublime beauty that is Steen's Mountain), then a valley along the faultline at the mountain's base, filled with memories of buffalo and the sweetest, hottest springs a body could ever desire.
But dig this - it gets better. I overnighted in Jordan Valley and with my Basque supper (sheepherder bread and beans) I perused tomorrow's map and spied what appeared to be a ghost town just over the border in Idaho. 50 miles of graded road. On top of a mountain. Scooby sound. I lit out at first light.
Graded skinny steep ass road it turned out to be. I contemplated turning back when the side mirror showed my right rear tire hanging over the abyss, but by then, clearly, it was too late. Long story short - the ranger's face in the reserve was nothing near the faces on the folks in Silver City. Just blank uncomprehension as I pulled over the 15% rise, Polly's belongings now covered in a layer of dust in the back.
I share this secret only because I know most of you won't go. This is pretty much the sweetest ghost town I've ever seen. That you have to fight to get there is special; that folks are working to restore it, have turned it into a friendly somewhat spooky but not really, throwback to a century ago, is hella cool. That the Bruneau Dune, the highest/second highest (depends on how the wind blows) in the country is over the hill to the east, forgetaboutit. Ten zillion stars.
Which, coincidentally, is but a fraction of what you see out these parts at night.
Load the Conestoga loveys, drop me a PM. I'll hook you up with one of the best backcountry adventures you've ever been on.
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